You know when something looks wrong ?

On Mondays I get the bus to work after walking wee one to school. Gives me a day to take all my week's clothes in to hang in my locker.

Anyway - going up Leith Street, I noticed a student-type on a rusty-looking MTB. He was waiting alongside the bus I was on at the lights. Something about his bike made me look twice, as there was something that just didn't look right. Then I noticed his front brake was behind the fork and the blocks were loose and hanging at 90 degrees to the rim. 'Weird', I thought. Then it dawned on me - his front fork was the wrong way round !! It gave the front of the bike a slight 'bent backwards' look... I wonder if he even realised that it should have been facing the other way ?

i was driving down the road the other day and i saw this bloke riding towards me on the other side. something weird about him. seemed a bit tall. as he got closer, i thought, oh he's only got one arm. closer still i realised he did have two arms, only one was holding the saddle...

When I lived in Hull, it was quite normal to see mtbs with no brakes at all. Reason: Bloke on a bike would find the buckled wheels made the brakes rub so the simple solution was to remove or disconnect the brake - sorted! *Really Quite Worrying*

Depends how far you are going on one. If your commute is only 4 miles each way an old shopper or hard tail mtb is great for that. If you're doing 13miles each way (and have somewhere to put the bike inside when you get there) it's a different story. I know I couldn't ride 26 miles every day, 5 days a week and still have anything left at all to ride 50+ miles at weekends if I wasn't riding something that was comfortable and reasonably efficient to pedal. Of course if you're a near super human, amazingly strong rugby player type you might manage it, but I just couldn't.

When I lived in Hull, it was quite normal to see mtbs with no brakes at all. Reason: Bloke on a bike would find the buckled wheels made the brakes rub so the simple solution was to remove or disconnect the brake - sorted! *Really Quite Worrying*

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They do it in York too - in fact I expect anywhere there are yoofs...

We sometimes saw kids on roadshows (I'm talking 9 or 10 year olds or more), who seemed not to know that bikes had brakes - they would simply drag their feet to stop, and be amazed when we pointed out that the brakes on these bikes worked...